Bloody Sunday
by Mopargirl1
Summary: This is a story about the prices you pay for the decision you make. And that's about all I have to say. Sorry I just never know what to write in summary. No pairings of any sort. Rated M for adult subject matter.


**I watch and stare as Roisin's eyes**

**Turn a darker shade of red**

**And the bullet with this sniper lie**

**In their bloody gutless cell**

**Must we starve on crumbs from long ago**

**Through bars these men made steel**

**Is it a great or little thing we fought**

**Knelt the conscience blessed to kill**

**- Flogging Molly**

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**Disclaimer- I do not own the expendables, the only thing I own are my ocs.**

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**The Irish Sea, Near the border of Northern Ireland, 1700 hours, Friday, October 15th**

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The tall, dark-haired man, with equally dark eyes surveyed the beach in front of him, to no avail. He couldn't see more than a foot in any direction, except for high along the cliff face, where the gray fog swirled and danced on the cold winds. Mostly, blind to what went on around him, his other senses heightened. A dark shiver passed down his normally rigid spine, shaking off the alien feeling. Instead, focusing on what his heightened senses revealed about his surroundings. In the distance he could hear the ringing of buoy, the faint noise, mostly drowned out by the sounds of the surf crashing onto the beach, focusing in that direction. He tried again to peer through the dense wet fog that surrounded him at present and laid its icy fingers on his neck. But he couldn't make out more than a faint outline of the waves. Tugging the collar of his Navy pea coat higher around his neck, he took a pull off the cigar he held clamped between his teeth and reaching up with both hands pulled the brown drivers cap down so it set firmly on his head. He found himself hoping, strangely enough, that cold fingers he'd recently felt weren't an omen of what was to come, thinking again about the potential suicide mission he found himself on. At that moment, the wind picked up howling along the cliff behind him, the eerie sound making his body stiffen. He hoped that icy grip he'd just felt wasn't a harbinger of what was to come. His vaguely worried mind drifting, again, to the latest mission, he'd placed himself and his men upon.

The wind picking up again and howling mournfully, made his disquiet worsen. His mind drifted to the tales Tool, used to tell. Ones, he'd learned from his grandmother. Maggy Guinness, had been born in County Cork, Ireland and filled Tools head with stories, of the sidhe, selkies, and little green men, and many others. And Tool had shared a few of those tales through the years, mostly when they'd been younger men. After they had met in Bosnia, when they'd both still longed for home and hearth. Barney had spent a night or two, listening to a drunken Tool, tell stories of Deathcouchs, and ghostly specters. But at this moment the only tale Barney Ross could think of was the banshee. And the words he'd once read in an old Irish poem. The Banshee mournful wails in the midst of the silent, lonely, lonely night, plaining, she sings the song of death. As the last word of that line of poetry died off in his head, the wind picked up harder than before, howling with greater force as it whipped along the cliff face. The fine hairs along his arm stood up as he felt those icy fingers slide back around his neck once again. Their fridged grasp taking hold of his bones and not letting go.

Not normally a superstitious man, he dismissed the unease settling inside him and watched again. His eyes straining against the fog, trying to catch the slightest glimpse of either his British friend or Toll Road. But to no avail, he knew it would be a bit longer before they appeared. The Brit and Toll Road had made their way to the nearest village to have a look around to see if they could see any sign of their targets or if there might be any of their targets, brothers in arms present. He'd sent Toll Road with Lee today instead of going himself for one reason. Both Road and Lee would blend into the local populace better than Barney himself. He was too dark-skinned and obviously of Italian descent to blend into a small Irish fishing village unnoticed. They need complete anonymity at this moment. And that had ruled out all candidates except, Lee and Toll Road. The others like Barney would stick out in the crowd, so he had left the others on the plane. And then headed off to meet their contact for this mission, leaving the scouting of the village to Toll and Lee. Barney knew, now, since his meeting, that Lee and Toll wouldn't find any trace of the O'Leary siblings in the village, they'd traveled to a cabin four hours south of Dublin on the coast. A safe house used by them and their comrades when and if someone needed to lay low. They were exactly where Barney needed them to be alone and in an isolated location.

As he waited for Lee and Toll Road, he allowed his mind to focus fully on the mission before him and what had brought him to this desolate stretch of beach on the Irish shore. Meghan O'Leary and her brother Silas both members of the former IRA and two of its most persistent hangers on. Just a couple, of the few hundred still fighting for the freedom they felt they deserved. The pair had just the previous month shot and killed U.S. Senator Nathaniel Nash's, only son in Dublin. The son wasn't their target he had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it didn't matter. There was a price to be paid and vengeance to be exacted. Normally Barney wouldn't involve himself or his men in a mission where a woman was the target, but Meghan O'Leary wasn't your normal women. She and her brother were both trained and hardened killers.

One thing did give Barney pause, they fought for a cause one they'd given their entire lives too, and where willing to die for, if need be. And in Barney's experience a man with conviction, not matter what it might be in, was one to be handled with care.

And that was the only thing that gave him any second thoughts. It wasn't that he and his men were greatly outnumbered, Barney had spent three weeks of careful planning, waiting, for the best moment to grab them. If his plan worked as he wanted, they'd have the siblings and be out of Ireland before any fellow RIRA members realized it. What worried him, what bothered him, and what made Meghan and Silas O'Leary dangerous was they believed in what they stood for. In the research he'd done, he found himself in awe, the pair stood behind their beliefs, regardless of the personal cost. And those costs had been heavy indeed, they'd lost both parents and another sibling to this fight. Their father had been dedicated to this cause till the end and so had their mother, believing that they fought on the side of right. They'd raised their children to, two beliefs, a faith in God and a faith in their right for freedom.

Lee had been against this mission from the beginning, having plenty to say. Lee had, in his time in the British SAS, come face to face with the IRA and RIRA. And assured Barney that tangling with the RIRA the group that had formed post the Belfast agreement was a bad idea.

Then Lee had scoffed and went on a rant, saying, the term freedom fighters and RIRA should never be used in the same sentence. Freedom fighter implied a moral code something the RIRA lacked. Saying in his rant, the RIRA were nothing but terrorists and there was a good reason they were on the terrorist alert lists in both Britain and the state. Lee had tried to make his point by saying, if an English Protestant killed an Irish Catholic, then the Irish Catholics would kill three English Protestants to get their point across. Then asked Barney if he knew what that point was. Barney had answered, slightly taken aback by Lees passion on the subject, 'I can guess." Lee had informed him, 'the message is don't fuck with us and ours.' Lee had then asked Barney what exactly he thought the Irish bastards would do if they got their hands on them or figured out who exactly had come for two of their own? Barney had answered with a question of his own, 'when you become such a mama's boy?' By the next day Lee was, begrudgingly, on board. Barney did admit to himself as the wind came up harder this time that he wasn't so sure about this mission now that he was here. If Lee had stayed opposed Barney wasn't sure they'd be here now, but he hadn't asked what had changed his second in commands mind.

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Meghan O'Leary had no idea as she knelt beside her bed that night and prayed The Lord would wash her hands clean of innocent blood upon them, that a reckoning was coming. She didn't pay the mournful winds the least thought, nor did she notice the ghostly specters dancing in the mist outside of the cabin windows. If she had, she might have heard the warning that seemed to travel on those winds and shake the window panes in her room. Her granny had always said listen to the winds, _a aingil_, they tell you all you need to know.

But she didn't listen.


End file.
